During lockdown, stranded in Australia whilst on tour from the UK, Gwyn Ashton started some musical collaborations in his hometown of Adelaide and started working on some writing and recording projects with various local and international musicians.
One project was to help record a song with a friend of his who had been commissioned to write some music for a set of lyrics that had been penned by the late Bon Scott in 1974, prior to his role as AC/DC frontman. Ashton looked at the lyrics and wrote a guitar riff and melody to that song but was asked to stop by the label as he wasn't supposed to be involved in that process. Conflict had just broken out with Ukraine and Ashton decided to take his music he'd written and write a new set of lyrics to depict the futility and dangers of war.
There are two versions of this song as he had originally recorded it in the key of G and sent it off to Richard Fortus in Los Angeles who liked the song and agreed to record a solo for it. He'd also sent it to Australian band Choirboys singer Mark Gable to put a vocal on it but Gable requested it in a different key, so keeping the drum track intact, Ashton got Stu Rudd, David Blight, Andrea Dawson and himself to re-record the song in the key of C. The problem was Richard had already recorded the solo in the original key so Ashton played the solo on the first version himself, keeping Richard's solo for this alternative version where Ashton went back and recorded his own lead vocal and here it is!
Gwyn Ashton wrote and recorded this anti-war protest song with support from Richard Fortus (Guns N Roses) on lead guitar, David Blight (Cold Chisel) on harmonica, Andrea Dawson on backing vocals, Stu Rudd (The Superjesus) on bass and Travis Dragani (Bruce Kulik) on drums.
lyrics
Get Outta Town
Fingers pulling strings got blood on their hands
Gotta stay resilient can’t bow to no demands
We can’t afford the turmoil
Got right to be free
Why on earth don’t we learned from history?
They sent their guns and soldiers to desolate the land
They act on lies to terrify under the command
of dictatorship, a power hungry evil as we know
We heard the same words spoken over 80 years ago
Get outta town, get outta town
Don’t want your bombs and missiles
Or your pushing us around
Stop sending all you troops in
To burn us to the ground
It must be clear, no nuclear
Just get right outta town
We gotta stand together, we gotta all stay strong
We don’t wanna see those bastards activate the bomb
All the superpowers are as dangerous as the next
Once they hit ignition we won’t come off second best
It’s a game for all the powers, a game for all the rich
A game to see which one’s the first to push the master switch
Insanity prevails us and is running this shit show
We’ll never learn until we burn, there’s nowhere else to go
credits
released November 14, 2023
Gwyn Ashton - vocals, guitar
Richard Fortus - lead guitar
Andrea Dawson - backing vocals
Stu Rudd - bass
Travis Dragani - drums
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